Word.ws English Dictionary

Tristan chord

Tristan chord noun: a chord in musical composition consisting originally of the notes F, B, D♯ and G♯ which can be translated more generally in intervalic terms as: augmented fourth, augmented sixth and augmented ninth above a root. Enharmonically it sounds like a half-diminished seventh chord (e.g. F-A♭-C♭-E♭), though in terms of musical analysis it can be interpreted in several ways.

Noun

Tristan chord (plural Tristan chords)

  1. A chord in musical composition consisting originally of the notes F, B, D♯ and G♯ which can be translated more generally in intervalic terms as: augmented fourth, augmented sixth and augmented ninth above a root. Enharmonically it sounds like a half-diminished seventh chord (e.g. F-A♭-C♭-E♭), though in terms of musical analysis it can be interpreted in several ways.
    • Tristan chord (D♯ G♯ F B):
      1

Forms of Tristan chord

pluralTristan chords

Origin of Tristan chord

A reference to the chord used in the opening phrase of Richard Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde as part of the leitmotif attributed to the character Tristan.

Questions about Tristan chord

What does Tristan chord mean?
Tristan chord means a chord in musical composition consisting originally of the notes F, B, D♯ and G♯ which can be translated more generally in intervalic terms as: augmented fourth, augmented sixth and augmented ninth above a root. Enharmonically it sounds like a half-diminished seventh chord (e.g. F-A♭-C♭-E♭), though in terms of musical analysis it can be interpreted in several ways.
What part of speech is Tristan chord?
Tristan chord is a noun.
What is the plural of Tristan chord?
The plural of Tristan chord is Tristan chords.

Words near Tristan chord in the dictionary

  1. trist
  2. tristability
  3. tristable
  4. Tristach
  5. Tristan
  6. Tristan chord
  7. Tristan chords
  8. Tristan da Cunha
  9. Tristanesque
  10. Tristanian
  11. Tristanians

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Tristan chord (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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